In Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” Tessa Thompson’s titular socialite sows chaos. She manipulates. She cuts people to the bone with a quip. She pours more drinks.
Hedda Gabler, the heroine of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play, has long been one of theater’s most tragic figures, a woman hemmed in by societal convention and her own dread of scandal. She is that, and more, in DaCosta’s new “Hedda.”
